Willie Jooste is the Head of Operations at - South Africa's vehicle subscription service. Think Netflix for cars: one monthly fee, everything included, three months' notice to exit. No penalties, no surprise costs, just mobility.

Most people hear "subscription business" and picture passive, predictable income. Willie Jooste has built one from the ground up - and his take is more honest than that. Recurring revenue is consistent, yes. But consistent comes with obligations most founders don't think about until it's too late.

In this episode we get into:

• How Drive was born out of post-COVID stock shortages and a cashflow problem inside a traditional motor dealership
• Why subscription looks simple from the outside and isn't - the ops, the capital, the fleet management, the customer care
• The gravity vs lightning metaphor - why predictable revenue still demands constant attention
• Drive's proprietary system: telematics, a risk "black box", and how they recovered a hijacked vehicle and had the customer in a replacement within an hour
• Why they deliberately throttle their own growth - and what responsible scaling actually looks like in practice
• The biggest mistakes subscription businesses make, from transparency failures to putting customers in unreliable vehicles
• What any business can take from the subscription model - retention, lifetime value, and why relationships compound more than leads do
• Cashflow is king, team trumps all - Willie's closing lessons for business owners

If you run any kind of service business and you've ever wondered what it actually looks like to build something customers stay in month after month - this one's for you.

Willie Jooste, Head of Operations at Drive.

Click below to listen to the podcast on Spotify.